The present invention relates to a method utilizing the apparatus disclosed in the above referenced patent application for measuring the olefins present in a hydrocarbon stream. Te co-pending application discloses an electrochemical cell having an electrolyte which renders the cell sensitive for measuring trace amounts of lead alkyls in gaseous streams. The apparatus includes a means for filtering out or at least delaying the arrival of olefins in the gaseous streams at the electrochemical cell.
The present invention utilizes the above apparatus for detecting olefins in hydrocarbons. The most commonly used method for analyzing hydrocarbons for the presence of olefins is a gas chromatograph unit which separates the hydrocarbon stream into its components which can then be detected to provide a record of the quantity of each type of hydrocarbon in the stream. While this is satisfactory, it has a disadvantage of requiring a relatively long time to run a sample plus an overlap of signals from some olefins and aromatic hydrocarbons which confuse the resulting data.